Five ways that SYNC can pay for itself
By Rich Lindblom, AVB Marketing
As the product manager for AVB’s SYNC point-of-sale system, I speak with BrandSource members every week who want to keep their legacy POS platforms.
They usually cite three reasons:
- Their old POS system works fine, so there’s no reason to make a change.
- Their old POS system is already paid for or dirt cheap.
- They cannot afford SYNC’s monthly subscription fee.
I would ask you to consider a couple of things, though, the most important being the question I pose in the headline: Does your POS system cost you money or make you money?” Because that’s a pretty important question when you get right down to it.
Have you ever heard the term “opportunity cost”? The definition is, “The value of what you lose when choosing between two or more options.” Point being, just because your old POS system is cheap or even free, it doesn’t necessarily mean that sticking with it is the best choice.
While setting up dealers on SYNC, we often find ways that the system can help members make enough additional revenue or save enough time each month that SYNC will not only pay for itself, but frequently make them money. Just by making the switch.
How do we do it? I’m glad you asked.
By making sure that you are charging the correct prices for your services. A perfect example is an appliance dealer (who shall go nameless) in Michigan who was only charging $30 to deliver and install an over-the-range (OTR) microwave. I convinced the member to raise that fee to $90 (I wanted him to raise it to $130, but he refused to go above $90), and he is now making an additional $60 on every OTR microwave he sells. I can share dozens of similar stories, but the bottom line is that if we can simply help you make an additional $5 to $10 on every delivery, SYNC will literally pay for itself.
By helping you sell more extended warranties each month. I’ve had many, many dealers tell me that after switching over to SYNC, their extended warranty attachment rate went up between 25% and 50% every month. One dealer said his additional extended warranty sales alone cover the cost of his subscription to SYNC.
By saving you time each month. A furniture dealer once calculated it out and found that SYNC saves her 29 hours of paperwork every month. What could you do with an extra 29 hours a month? And if you are paying someone $15 to $25 an hour to do that paperwork, how much would that put back in your pocket?
By submitting your sell-through claims for you. We started last year with Electrolux and since then the average dealer has received over $2,000 in sell-through allowances automatically through SYNC that may have otherwise slipped away. Some of our subscribers are getting back as much as $1,200 per month from Electrolux, all without lifting a finger. (We are still in the testing phase with Whirlpool, with more brands to follow this year.)
See: Big News in Sell-Throughs
By helping you get paid faster and reducing your processing fees. Even though SYNC is not an accounting system, we have ways to help you identify outstanding invoices and expedite the payment process for your customers. Not only that, but by integrating with one of AVB’s Gold Partner credit card processing companies, we have seen our members save as much as 30% each month on their credit card processing fees. (In fact, we just saw a smallish-sized dealer save over $800 per month by switching to SYNC.)
The bottom line is that sometimes it’s not all about the upfront cost, but rather the big-picture cost. A modern, properly installed, connected point-of-sale system can not only help make your life easier, but it can also make you more money than you thought possible.
Rich Lindblom sold his 64-year-old family business, Advanced Maytag Home Appliance of Schaumburg, Ill., and now shares his more than four decades of retail experience with BrandSource members as product manager of AVB’s SYNC point-of-sale system and as a YSN columnist. You can reach Rich at rich.lindblom@avb.net.
